Ken Dixon: CT needs to copycat other states

2of2In the arms of Animal Care Supervisor Eric Zuercher, Sadie, a declawed three year old cat, shows her declawed front paw while waiting for adoption at the San Francisco Animal Care and Control Shelter in San Francisco. San Francisco supervisor Ross Mirkarimi had recently proposed a legistation in banning declawing in the city after the City's Animal Care and Welfare Commission voted 5-1 in recommending the ban. Declawing, also known as onychectomy, according to The Human Society of the United States, is a surgical procedure often done by amputating the last bone of each toe for reasons ranging from people's fears of being scratched and preventing cats from damaging household items.Photo: Stephen Lam / The Chronicle

New York has prohibited the barbaric practice of declawing cats.

So, yet another neighboring state proves how they can be more progressive, and maybe even a better place to live.

The Connecticut General Assembly is such a clunky, slow-moving amorphous mass of ’fraidy cats that it’s a wonder that anything gets accomplished.

Oh, legislation that would have extracted license fees from cat owners was introduced, then mercifully died this year. Protecting the cats? Not so much.

How many felines are there in the state? Well, with an estimated 70 million feral cats nationwide, we can easily say there are a million cats, either inside and/or outside.

It’s not that I don’t want to tear out Roughy’s claws on occasion, especially when we notice the shredded Ikea furniture cover. But her littermates have made a far-bigger commitment to mangling the sofa. If you don’t want cats to have claws, I figure, don’t have a cat. Simple.

Since Roughy’s recent near-death experience, we’re cutting her some slack. In fact, a few more claw marks would not only go unnoticed, but they’d be a welcome sign of recovery.

Besides litter and cigarette butts, one of the side effects of living in a downtown neighborhood of multi-family dwellings owned predominantly by absentee landlords, is we’re used to the near-monthly ebb and flow of neighbors.

When they move out, under whatever circumstances, too often they abandon their pets. I don’t want to live near people who would forsake their animals, so I’m partially relieved when the inevitable U-Haul shows up at one house or another on the 30th of a month. The downside is that suddenly there’s another cat stalking the ’hood.

But what’s one more stray animal’s mouth to feed, what with Mr. R, Marmalade, Radar and various other strays or feral cats who over the years stop by the feeding station at the bottom of our driveway?

That’s how we adopted Roughy, a long-hair, and her two sleeker brothers, in the first place. Their evasive mother finally, surprisingly, brought them out from under the front porch one day. They were a couple months old and we trapped them, one-by-adorable-one. We figured that social media would help us find homes for the black kittens. Not even close.

Who knew that in the 21st century, people are apparently still scared of black cats?

Roughy was originally called Runty, to acknowledge the diminutive size compared with her big brothers.

A few months later, while we were still going through the motions of finding homes for one or two of the litter, the mysterious mother cat produced another bunch of kittens, escaping for good after we took in our fourth all-black kitty. And once we spent the hundreds of bucks on vaccinations, there was no way they were going to leave the house.

But with the stray/feral activity down at the feeding station, it’s inevitable that the occasional flea would attach itself to an ankle and hitch a ride inside. Mr. R, a dread-locked, wheezy long-hair, spends most mornings in our back garden, then eventually makes it across a semi-busy street to some other location. On the coldest nights, he’ll rest in a cardboard box lined with straw under our porch.

What we didn’t anticipate was Roughy’s recent flea infestation and anemia. So, the good deed of feeding hungry neighborhood cats was certainly punished. It turns out that the topical flea treatment we had given our four acted mostly like salad dressing for the insects that were quietly sucking the life out of her.

Dr. Eva Ceranowicz, a Bloomfield vet who is a member of the board of the Connecticut Veterinary Medical Association, said the weather has been perfect this year for the resilient fleas, which can gang up on kittens and small cats like Roughy.

“It all depends if you are unlucky,” said Ceranowicz, the state’s 2013 veterinarian of the year.

Roughy’s OK now and the little beasties are on the run. All four cats are now equipped with high-end flea collars.

So keep an eye on your companions of other species. What you don’t see can hurt them. Use flea collars, whether they go outside or not. And look out for strays. They might need a meal and certainly, in these steamy cat days of summer, a dish of water.

Then call your state lawmakers and demand that in 2020, an election year, the General Assembly outlaw the declawing of cats.

Ken Dixon, political editor and columnist, can be reached at 860-549-4670 or at kdixon@ctpost.com. Visit him at twitter.com/KenDixonCT and on Facebook at kendixonct.hearst.

A Connecticut native and Stamford High School graduate, I graduated with a journalism degree from Ohio University, where I was also most-valuable player on its soccer team. I covered suburban communities and Bridgeport City Hall before the State Capitol. I have won awards from the National Society of Professional Journalists and the National Press Club; several awards from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists; and numerous awards for news and column-writing from the state chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. I still play competitive soccer in an intrastate league.